Prominent Greek Bishop Lashes Out Against Thessaloniki Gay Pride

Metropolitan Anthimos of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, called homosexuality a “perversion of the human existence” and the city’s annual gay pride festival is a “disgrace and a challenge.”

Asked to comment on the Thessaloniki Pride event, which takes place this weekend in the northern port city, the bishop added “Do not give dogs what is holy”, referring to a line from the gospel of Matthew.

The hierarch, well known for his homophobic and nationalist outbursts, continued: “Show respect that my position and life is wholly dedicated to the church and the people and respect the fact that I’m well behaved, so don’t associate me with this disgrace. Enough. This is a perversion of the human existence.”

This is Thessaloniki’s 3rd official Gay Pride event. At the city’s first pride festival, in 2012, about 50 people, comprised largely of church-goers with bibles, icons and crucifixes in hand, threw eggs and plastic bottles of water at the 400 people participating in the event.

Dr. Marie Bountrogianni, a long-time observer and supporter of minority rights issues in her native Canada, as well as in Greece and abroad and a former Ontario cabinet member from Canada, suggested that the Greek Orthodox Church shouldn’t get itself into the conversation of sexuality.

“Institutions living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, Bountrogianni told The Pappas Post in an interview. “The Greek Orthodox Christian Church, of all places, should be a place without judgement and hatred— especially on issues of sexuality,” she added.

22 comments

GiannisJune 18, 2014 - 7:57 pm

a few quick comments:

1) The bishop should be commended for standing up for Orthodoxy. The Old Testament Prophesies (Isaiah) clearly state (paraphrased a bit) “woe to those who make what is wrong right, etc…” That is what the mayor of Thessaloniki was doing (legalizing & propagating the acceptance of what is spiritually illegal), so the bishop of Thessaloniki was correct to protest.

2) The Church as an institution should maintain consistency and not harbor or provide cover for impropriety, if that is in fact going on…

3) I have always wondered how educated people came up with the word “homophobia”, which literally means “fear of one’s own”, as some sort of “revenge tactic” to label the majority that simply doesn’t agree with or accept a specific sin… it’s quite interesting that in Greek this word doesn’t exist, because it makes no sense at all linguistically…nevertheless, English and other languages suddenly use a word that doesn’t really mean what the users intend it to mean. Calling the metropolitan “homophobic” is linguistically incorrect. Even calling him “homophylophobic” would also not be correct because he doesn’t really seem to be “afraid” of anyone…However, calling him “Orthodox” is more correct, based on the statements above.

4) It seems that in the world of “freedom of expression”, not agreeing that homosexuality is not an acceptable concept is slowly being criminalized. There is a big difference between not agreeing with a concept, and discriminating against someone who is “different”….unfortunately, the current fashion is to immediately accuse someone of discrimination for simply disagreeing, and this is WRONG. The rights of those who express the view that homosexuality is not acceptable are equally protected under the law as the ones who feel that it is acceptable. Generic labels (such as “homophobic”) to criminalize this view should be made illegal.

Homophobic, arachnophobic, agoraphobic… nothing wrong with these labels when they are true. Furthermore, of all institutions, as Mrs. Bountrogianni noted properly, the Orthodox Church should stay out of the sexuality game. Half the American synod of bishops are themselves homosexuals and hordes of unmarried priests in the church are too. The church attracts homosexuals for some reason… if you want to hide behind your scriptures and not face reality– that is fine. But the point of the my remarks… pick another battle because the battle of homosexuality will be lost by the church. Focus on abortion… focus on feeding the poor… but for heaven’s sake… every time I hear a priest or bishop lashing out against gays… I remember my childhood priest– gayer than the gayest person I ever knew, floating around like a butterfly, oblivious to the fact that everyone knew and quite frankly, nobody in our parish cared, because he was a damn good priest.

I will agree…”clean up the Church” and remove those clergy members who are not living up to what they promised – I never contested that idea.

On the “labels” comment, if a word doesn’t make sense, why use it? “homophobic” really means “fear of one’s own”….”homophylophobic” means fear of homosexuality… Does it really seem to you that the Metropolitan is “afraid” of anyone here? The use of the word is ridiculous, and always has been. The word doesn’t exist in Greek because it’s nonsensical and ridiculous, but because it sounded “cool”, it suddenly became an ignorant linguistic colloquialism in English and some other languages starting in the late 1980s / early 1990s…it seems to me that the more appropriate label here is the word “Θεομαχος” for those who “proudly” display their allegiance to the “spiritually illegal” while trying to criminalize those who openly disagree with this “pride”.

Blah Blah Blah…here's a word definition, "Greek" in reference to a certain style of physical coupling..Another invention from Greek culture, seeing as how we Greeks invented everything, it's a fact of life, it exists and there is nothing that the church is going to do about it. I have no problem following the path of Orthodoxy, which was pounded into me throughout my childhood. All this fuss is simply "Greek" to me.

Blah Blah Blah…here’s a word definition, “Greek” in reference to a certain style of physical coupling..Another invention from Greek culture, seeing as how we Greeks invented everything, it’s a fact of life, it exists and there is nothing that the church is going to do about it. I have no problem following the path of Orthodoxy, which was pounded into me throughout my childhood. All this fuss is simply “Greek” to me.

The bishop is correct. By the way, the word "homophobe" is a recent contrivance by so called gay rights groups. No one fears homosexuals. Don't be fooled into thinking they are born that way. No science supports that claim.

You’re wrong, there is proven scientific fact now that homosexuality is in some cases genetic. Also, The NPAP (supports the principle that homosexuality is no more intrinsically pathological than is heterosexuality.

Since 1975, the American Psychological Association has called on psychologists to take the lead in removing the stigma of mental illness that has long been associated with lesbian, gay, and bisexual orientations. The discipline of psychology is concerned with the well-being of people and groups and therefore with threats to that well-being. The prejudice and discrimination that people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual regularly experience have been shown to have negative psychological effects.

The Bishop ignoring his children and by not taking action to protect them from negative psychological effects during this time of inequality is not loving and neglectful, therefore unorthodox.

It is a great distortion of fact to claim that homosexuality is genetic, because everyone, (including those who end up leaning towards homosexuality), is derived from exactly 2 HETEROsexual people. In the strict sense, the word “genetic” in biological science means you inherited the trait from your parents. It makes no biological sense for a direct “trait” of homosexuality to be obtained from two heterosexual parents in this light… The only possibility of a “genetic” claim would be to identify a “mutation” of a gene, that is consistent across all control groups (like trisomy X, or something similar)…Therefore, in this option, when you claim “genetic” it means that someone has identified a “homo sexual genetic mutation” in the human genome…that is certainly NOT the case, because it were the case, you could in theory easily use gene therapy to swap out the “different” DNA sequence in a lab and transform the particular organism into a heterosexual one. Haven’t heard of that study yet, have we?

Conclusion: Don’t deceive yourselves so easily with these “scientific studies” just because they were on “CNN”…Science is a serious discipline, and requires facts and reproducible experimentation. Does anyone remember the fate of the Nuclear Physicists who claimed they achieved Cold Fusion about 20-25 years ago? Were they not reputable “scientists” before they lost all credibility (and their jobs) as the facts were examined more closely & others tried in vain to reproduce their claims? Let it play out before you make final conclusions.

We really need to take a step back from all of this theoretical nonsense…The definition of sin cannot change, because God is constant through the ages…However that’s exactly what the “scientific studies” are deceiving people into doing, by making them believe it is possible to remove responsibility from the sinner…For example, if I look at a woman as an object of desire, I have sinned, plain and simple. I can’t use the excuse “God made me a heterosexual, so I can’t help it…”. Unfortunately, the trends are for homosexuals (and not) to believe this idea that they are not “responsible” for any of these thoughts or desires…Our Patristic understanding is that only if you reject the bad thought immediately you are not responsible, but if you contemplate it, ponder on it, desire it, etc, then you ARE spiritually responsible…That’s our faith as it has been handed down, and we can’t change it… if you give up before the fight has begun because of a false excuse, there is certainly no benefit to you in the end…

There is proven scientific fact now that homosexuality is in some cases genetic. Also, The NPAP (supports the principle that homosexuality is no more intrinsically pathological than is heterosexuality.

Since 1975, the American Psychological Association has called on psychologists to take the lead in removing the stigma of mental illness that has long been associated with lesbian, gay, and bisexual orientations. The discipline of psychology is concerned with the well-being of people and groups and therefore with threats to that well-being. The prejudice and discrimination that people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual regularly experience have been shown to have negative psychological effects.

The Bishop ignoring his children and by not taking action to protect them from negative psychological effects during this time of inequality is not loving but neglectful, therefore unorthodox.

Same sex attraction might be from birth as some gays claim " like being born with blond hair and blue eyes" but living a gay lifestyle is a choice. Free will. As much of a choice as choosing to be a sexually active heterosexual Neglectful would be if the Bishop did NOT speak out against this. It is out if love that the Church leads us in the right path not bending to the shins if society for fear of offending anyone. But God we can always offend.

Only thing I would add Anastasia is the comments from the Archbishop were certainly not made out of love, would you agree? Do you think Jesus would have spoken such a comment? I suspect not, and this is a Metropolitan?!?!

Rachel Francis – I understand. The Metropolitan understands. The Word of God is immutable and the Orthodox Church will not suddenly after 2000 years change its teachings to accommodate a political gay agenda.